Thomas Schwagmeier

Born in 1963 in Jena, Germany, I was 5 years old when my parents
woke me up in the middle of the night and put me in front of our
TV set to watch Neil Armstrong setting foot on the lunar surface.
This marked the beginning of my great interest in lunar
missions. At that moment, I hoped to be an astronaut.
Eventually, I realized that a career as an astronaut probably
wasn't possible under the communist government of that time, so I
became a professional musician, playing the bassoon at the Theater
of Magdeburg. But the passion for spaceflight still remained.
After two years of struggle with the government, I finally was
allowed to leave East Germany ... shortly before the Wall
was torn down. Arriving in West Germany I had to change my
profession, and worked as a typographer for a book manufacturer in
Ulm for some years. Then I moved back to my hometown in 2006,
working for the Digitizing Branch at the Thuringian University and
Regional Library in Jena where I help to make ancient books
available online. When the Internet came up, late in the 90's, I
quickly found the Apollo Lunar Surface Journal and was as happy as
a child in a candy store over all the interesting material. My
Apollo passion grew strong again. It took just a couple of years
to became a contributor to the Journal. That led me to visit Eric
Jones at Wodonga Base in 2009. One year later, in 2010, Eric
proposed a project to translate the Journal into German, and I
agreed. This led a close collaboration between Eric and me, which
I enjoy and which, of course, makes me very proud. And my Apollo
passion becomes stronger and stronger ...